


Angel

by OrdinaryRealities



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Gender, It started out as a crack fic, angel as a term of endearment, i don't even know what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 12:16:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19812124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrdinaryRealities/pseuds/OrdinaryRealities
Summary: “You’re an angel. Thank you.”Crowley’s face twisted. “I’m really, really not.”She patted him on the arm. “Of course you aren’t, dear.”





	Angel

**Author's Note:**

> First I want to say that ao3tagoftheday on tumblr is holding a fundraiser for refugees at the US-Mexico border. Consider donating and getting fic or art in exchange for your donation!
> 
> Next, a word about pronouns in this fic. I've seen a lot of people use she/her for Crowley when Crowley is Nanny or at the crucifixion. Although Crowley specifically dresses in women's clothing in one scene here (maybe in others, I just didn't say) I've chosen to use he/him pronouns throughout. I tried using she/her pronouns for that scene, but they didn't fit for me. 
> 
> I have two arguments for why I left the he/him pronouns. The first is that God uses exclusively he/him pronouns for Crowley and to that argument, I have this quote from Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts describing Nelson's impotent frustration with people misgendering her partner: "it's more like I'm ashamed for (or simply pissed at) the person who keeps making all the wrong presumptions and has to be corrected, but who can't be corrected because the words aren't good enough" (Nelson 7). (Seriously, what are you doing reading this? Go re-read the Argonauts instead!) I don't have the right words here to create the gender I'm seeing as Crowley's in this fic.
> 
> My other argument is that tumblr has identified a wide range of Crowley's modern clothes as women's products. If Crowley consistently dresses in women's clothing or clothing made to look like women's clothing and is referred to as he/him, then I'm going to go ahead and assume he's comfortable with those pronouns, even as a gnc/nb/whatever gender of person he considers himself.
> 
> My apologies to anyone who feels strongly about she/her pronouns for Crowley. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't use them, but it just didn't work out here. Crowley's gender non-conformity is easily the thing about Good Omens that matters the most to me, and I spent a lot of time (comparatively, for such a short fic) angsting as I went back and forth about how to best represent it on the page.
> 
> Finally, I have no idea what this fic is. One minute I was like, "wouldn't it be funny if" and the next I had a fully-formed lesbian best friend for Crowley.

If you asked Crowley he would tell you that it was an accident. Well, he would claim it was an accident once he tried to explain how it was really very demonic of him. Somewhere in the middle of that explanation he might trail off as he heard his own flimsy reasoning out loud, but his years of experience bullshitting Hell and Aziraphale might be enough to get the whole explanation out first. Crowley did invent ‘fake it ‘til you make it’. (No, not like that. He was just the first one to settle on that as a course of action. Not that he really had much choice.)

If Miss Ewing was there when you asked, (as she could easily be, because how else would the subject come up?) she would nod and listen as he protested his evil designs, and at the end of it she would pat him consolingly and tell him that she was sure it was very evil of him. She would convince no one, but she would say it with a straight face.

The way it actually happened was something like this. It was in the early 1980’s and Crowley was going too fast for Aziraphale. He was going too fast sitting on a park bench feeding ducks. Aziraphale wasn’t actually there, because Crowley was trying not to go too fast, so he was sitting alone. The ducks didn’t care how fast he flung the stale breadcrusts at them. (He threw one at nearly 2000 miles per hour (bullet speeds ought to only be measured in American units of measurement if the citizens of the US were going to be so bloody-minded (literally) about their guns. This applied retroactively.) and watched the duck it hit. Then he sighed and waved a hand, and a very confused duck began paddling again where it had been dying a few seconds ago and began cautiously to peck at the bread once more.) It wasn’t even any fun to sulk when Aziraphale wasn’t around. No one to complain when Crowley abused the patient ducks of St. James.

There was a soft crash and a huff to his left as he was about to throw another crust. He turned. A forty-something woman held a grocery bag in one hand and a child with the other. The child (no more than six or seven) had pulled towards the ducks (Crowley privately added feeding the ducks to his list of seemingly innocuous activities that were really quite demonic when you thought about it) and caused her to lose the bread and egg carton she’d had perched precariously on top of the bag. 

“But Auntie, I want to feed the ducks!” The child jumped and the grocery bag jostled. 

She sighed. “Jordan, we don’t have anything for you to feed the ducks with. Your mother needs this bread to make sandwiches.”

Crowley folded into a sitting position from where he’d been lounging across the park bench and then stood to his full height. The action looked vaguely serpentine. He sauntered over and reached for the bread and eggs.

“Here you are, Missss.” He wasn’t sure why he’d bothered except that the joggers were looking annoyed at her and the child and he approved of that.

The child stopped jumping and stared at Crowley, wide-eyed. 

Crowley sighed. “The ducks like stale bread better anyway. It stays on the surface longer.” He had no idea if that was true. It ought to be. If it was stale, it took longer to absorb moisture, right?

The child’s eyes were wide. “You have stale bread.” It could have been a question. 

Crowley nodded. Handed the bread and egg carton back into the top of the bag. “No harm done,” he told her, as the bread unsquished and eggs miraculously uncracked. To the child, he said, “I would check with your aunt if I were you. It’s possible that she’d rather get those eggs back before you actually manage to smash your breakfast all over the sidewalk.”

The woman’s face twitched like she was trying not to smile. 

“Auntie, can I?”

She looked at Crowley and waited for his nod. “Alright, but stay right here.”

She let go and the child scampered over to the bench where Crowley had left the bread. 

“You’re an angel. Thank you.”

Crowley’s face twisted. “I’m really, really not.”

She patted him on the arm. “Of course you aren’t, dear.”

That was the beginning. Crowley quickly found that humans moved fast even for him. Within weeks they had established a twice weekly meeting at the park. Crowley supplied the bread for Jordan to throw at the ducks. Miss Ewing supplied the chatter. He still wasn’t entirely sure how it had happened. (Would never have admitted that, bored and lonely as he was, even the company of a six-year-old and a woman with so little perception as to call him an angel were better than no company at all.)

It had been nearly two months the next time it happened. Crowley was running a little late – had dropped by Aziraphale’s bookstore with a temptation that needed doing next week, did Aziraphale have anything going nearby that he could take care of as well, time got away from him – and it was only as he drew even with the bench that he realized Miss Ewing was alone today. 

“And where’s young Jordan?”

Miss Ewing smiled, strained. “The father’s home.”

At this point, Crowley was well-familiarized with Miss Ewing’s thing with Jordan’s mother. A thing which only happened when Jordan’s father was overseas, which he was for months at a time.

“Bad luck. Lunch?” Crowley winced as soon as he’d suggested it. Perhaps it would give the wrong idea.

She immediately brightened. “Oh, you’re an angel. I would really appreciate that, if you’re sure you don’t mind? I’m sort of at loose ends.”

Crowley was better prepared this time. He froze, but managed to avoid making any faces at the thought. He took a breath. “I’m really more of a demon, Miss Ewing.”

She took the arm he had offered her when he proposed lunch and patted it. “Absolutely, dear.”

It was the very next time they met (in a nice tearoom not far from one of Crowley’s favorite gay bars) that she did it again. 

She was nearly in tears when she came in. 

Crowley got her tea and something to eat and let her get to it in her own time. 

She was on her third cup of tea before she began, fingers tearing away at her untouched sandwich. “I got a call from my landlord today.” She swallowed hard. “He’s raising the rent. Said he can’t have riffraff hanging about. He means me.” She scowled and sidetracked. “If he means queers he can just say queers.”

Crowley nodded. 

She continued. “Anyway, I can’t afford it, and now I have to be out this week and nowhere to go.” She picked up her teacup with shaking hands.

“Food will help,” Crowley told her. “You have to eat.”

“I’ll be on the streets.”

Crowley scoffed. “My flat is big enough, and I’m rarely in. You could stay for a bit, while we figure it out. My landlord has a soft spot for queer folk down on their luck.”

Crowley owned the building.

He was braced before she said it. “Really? Oh, Anthony, that’s too much. You’re an angel.” 

Crowley huffed. “Demon.”

She rolled her eyes.

In the end, he managed it by pretending he was a go-between. She tried to protest when she moved herself into his flat for the week. (Even Crowley couldn’t miracle an entire flat into being in a week. What if she wanted space for Jordan and Jordan’s mum someday? I mean, he could, but downstairs might notice something that big. And then he would have to explain, and although it was demonic (it was! Undercutting housing prices! And, and, housing queer people!) they might not understand. They often didn’t. They didn’t stay in touch with the modern human.) There was no way that she could afford something like this, she snapped, blushing. Crowley disagreed. He looked so dangerous about it that she didn’t even call him an angel. He told himself he wasn’t relieved. He told himself he wasn’t disappointed. 

As tempting as it was to manufacture a reason for Aziraphale to visit his flat that week, he didn’t. He didn’t want to hurt the Angel, after all, and besides, he’d only take it literally and try to stay out of Crowley’s way or something. Instead, he held pajama parties with Miss Ewing. They watched movies and threw popcorn at one another and occasionally pillows.

“Anthony?” They had just finished watching a film about teen lesbians (It had only taken a minor miracle – more of a belief really – for their VHS to have the unedited version on it) and Miss Ewing was looking pensive. They sat at either end of the couch, each of them sprawled in their nighties. (Crowley appreciated the fact that Miss Ewing had taken the nightie so in stride. He was used to being friends with Aziraphale. Two friends was significantly more than usual.)

“Miss Ewing.”

She smiled. “I feel like we always talk about me and my problems. I don’t even know what you do for a living.”

Crowley pulled a face. “Investments. Very dull, lots of paperwork. Next question.”

Her head tilted thoughtfully. “You’ll tell me to stop asking if you don’t want to answer.”

“I’ll probably just tell you to ask a different one.”

She nodded. “And the company you work for? Do they know that you’re,” her gesture took in all of Crowley and half of the flat. They hadn’t been drinking that much. “That you’re… all of this?”

Crowley paused before he answered. “The gender thing they won’t mind as long as I keep it quiet enough that I don’t get myself killed.”

It took her a moment to hear what Crowley wasn’t saying. One of Crowley’s favorite things about Miss Ewing was how quick she was on the uptake. “The sexuality thing, not so much?”

Crowley sighed, and admitted it out loud for the first time in his life. “I had to go and fall for someone from the rival company, you know?”

Her mouth did something complicated. “Tell me about them.”

Crowley loved humans, although he tried not to admit it, and he had loved this one specifically for quite some time now. Nevertheless, their friendship tightened a touch further in that moment.

Crowley sighed as he tried to pick where to start. “He’s just... He’s an Angel, really. No,” he held up a hand, “I keep telling you, I’m not an angel. He is. He’s kind and generous – the first time we ever met, he’d just given away – well, an important company artifact – to make people’s lives easier, even though if they found out what he’d done it could have been more than his life was worth.” He watched her wonder if Crowley and Aziraphale were in the Mafia. “ – He wants to see the best in people, all the time. Even when someone does something,” he paused. There was no way to turn the flood or crucifixion into a story he could tell Miss Ewing, was there? “Something really unforgiveable,” and that word played on its usual associations for Crowley and offered a different line of attack. “I’ve done unforgiveable things for my job. Not what you’re thinking. Much worse than that.” Crowley swallowed. “but A- He still keeps up this terribly dangerous friendship with me. And if we were caught, I could play it off. A demon is supposed to tempt people, even angels. But what Aziraphale would say to Hea-” 

Crowley stopped, horrified. It was that Miss Ewing. Too comfortable with her blasted sleepover secrets atmosphere. A girls night. He’d never made a blunder like that, not even in the garden. And Crowley couldn’t look at her, stomach curling as he imagined what Miss Ewing’s face might look like if she believed it – or worse, if she didn’t.

“Alright.” Her voice only shook a little. “I’m going to suspend my disbelief and you’re going to tell me… whatever you want to say about it.” She picked up the second, unopened bottle of wine. “And I am going to get raging drunk, and whatever you say that I can’t believe will just be a figment of the alcohol. It always gives me strange dreams.”

Crowley paused, then folded himself up to place a kiss on her cheek. “Talk about angels. Miss Ewing, dear, I don’t think I’ll ever deserve you.”

Miss Ewing gave him a wicked grin as he settled back and tucked his toes under the edge of his nightgown. (He wouldn’t have to concentrate on keeping them scale-free under there.) 

“Anthony, love, I always cheat on my taxes.”

Crowley threw his head back and laughed. “Far, far too good for me.” And he began.

“And then he says, ‘You go too fast for me, Crowley,’ and I just,” Crowley had gotten a little more drunk than he had intended as well. “Six thousand years! Well, thirteen to go, but close enough.”

“Dreamy is he? You just want to get close enough to share his skin? And then make him explode from want?”

Crowley may not have partaken in the sex and nonsense that went on, but he knew what she was implying perfectly well. “Oh, well. Sharing skin sounds interesting but I’ve always felt explosions would be,” he sighed. “Messy.”

She laughed. “The look on your face, love. Alright then.” And that was that.

Crowley studied her. “You aren’t upset to find out you’re in the flat of- Well, of a demon?”

She shrugged. “I’m a woman interested in women. Angels wouldn’t be interested in someone like me.”

Crowley snorted. “Aziraphale looked out for all of Soho in the 1880’s.” 

Miss Ewing snorted. “I’ll stick with the demon if you don’t mind.” She patted Crowley’s foot with her own. “I don’t know your angel from Adam, but I know you.” A hand snuck down to squeeze Crowley’s ankle comfortingly. “You’re like my own guardian angel.”

“Demon.” It was nearly a snarl.

Miss Ewing rolled her eyes. “Guardian demon, then.”

She was much more comfortable taking the reduced rent after that night, but Crowley never dared to ask her how much she might remember. It wasn’t quite a month later that Jordan’s mother made room in the household for Miss Ewing as a full-time staff member and she moved out.

It was in the year 2000 that a woman in her mid-sixties walked up beside Crowley as he tossed bread to the ducks. Aziraphale was busy again. Something about a rare book. There was something stale about doing demonic intervention when no one was around to scold him for it.

“Anthony. I thought I might find you here.”

Crowley whipped around. 

Her hair was short and white and she was beaming at him. 

He swallowed. “Miss Ewing. Is it still Miss Ewing?”

She patted his shoulder and laughed. “What do you think, dear?”

He took a breath and offered her his arm. (There was really only one reaction he could have to this situation.) “Let me buy you lunch?”

She smiled and took his arm. “Allow me.”

As they ate, she told him about the business. How she had left Jordan’s mother and gone into business with an internet café. “It’s been lovely.”  
Crowley studied the space. He’d been working on spreading a new temptation. “Had you considered promoting… Well, I could arrange it so that your café couldn’t be held responsible for anything legally. Have you heard of Napster?”

He dropped by her café every few months over the next few years. In 2008, months before the antichrist arrived, Crowley installed the now-retired Miss Ewing in the flat below him once again, where he could keep an eye on her. She was the one who, one night when they’d both been drinking, goaded him into buying Aziraphale a mug. “It has angel wings on it! It’s perfect.”

(When a second one had arrived on his table, she’d swatted him playfully. “Oh, go on. It’s to remind you what an angel you are.” Crowley had rolled his eyes. “Demon.”)

The night after Armageddon Crowley wandered in, smiling. He tapped at Miss Ewing’s door and twirled when she let him in.

“Miss Ewing,” he informed her gravely, “The world is safe, Aziraphale is safe… Even I am safe, and what’s more, Aziraphale loves me.”

She patted his cheek, then kissed it gently. “You’re a silly old angel, dear.”

“Demon.”

She cocked her head at him. “It’s good to have you back.”

It wasn’t until weeks later that Aziraphale, one evening in Crowley’s flat, mentioned her. 

“Everything around here behaves so oddly, you know? I look at your plants and they fairly quiver, and even that little old lady downstairs,” Crowley sat up indignantly, “That morning, when I was you, I held the door for her coming in from her walk and she called me an angel and then looked at me so oddly. I didn’t know what to say.”

Crowley gasped, and then he laughed and laughed until Aziraphale asked him if he was alright. He choked and laughed again, shaking his head.

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, Crowley doesn't abandon Miss Ewing when she's 80-something and all alone aside from him. Aziraphale starts to close up shop slowly and they move his books to South Downs over the next decade or two, but they don't follow until Miss Ewing has lived out her full life. Crowley takes care of her until the end.
> 
> (Her flat is full of happy plants with spots that have been miracled away.)


End file.
